Trump Administration Archives

Trump Administration Asks Court to Let It Re-Evaluate Revolution Wind’s COP

October 14, 2026 — The Trump administration is renewing its challenges to Ørsted’s offshore wind farm, Revolution Wind, located off the coast of Rhode Island. The Department of Justice is asking a District Court in the District of Columbia to remand its prior approval of the construction and operations plan (“COP”) for further review on a project that has completed construction and is in the final stages of commissioning.

It marks the third time the Trump administration has challenged the 704 MW wind farm project, which is contracted to supply power to Connecticut and Rhode Island. In August 2025, it sought to stop construction while the project was approximately 80 percent complete, but it was rejected by the courts. In December 2025, the administration included Revolution Wind in its stop-work orders, this time contending the operations posed a risk to national security due to the potential for radar interference. The courts again rejected the stop-work order and let the project resume construction in January 2026.

The Department of Justice made its new filing in a case being pursued by an environmental group that has been challenging the project in the courts for years. Green Ocean has been suing the Department of the Interior and Revolution Wind, contending the project would cause harm to the environment.

The new filing made on October 9 asked the court to grant Green Ocean a summary judgment on its claims against the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, related to the approval of the project. Further, it says the Department of the Interior agrees that remand of its prior approval of the construction and operations plan (COP) for the Revolution Wind Project is warranted so that the agency can reevaluate its compliance with the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

US State Department lists persistent human trafficking concerns in Taiwanese, Indonesian commercial fishing sectors

October 14, 2026 — The U.S. State Department has once again highlighted documentation of persistent human trafficking and labor abuses in Taiwan’s and Indonesia’s commercial fishing sectors.

“Human trafficking is a direct assault on the values of freedom and dignity that define America,” the State Department said in releasing the report. “The 2026 Trafficking in Persons Report reveals new ways criminal organizations and repressive regimes use this abhorrent practice for financial gain. The report also calls for accountability for governments that fail to punish traffickers and protect their citizens. The Trump Administration will use all available tools to fight traffickers and their enablers and bring them to justice.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

US Justice Department files defense of changes to definition of “harm” under ESA

October 12, 2026 — The U.S. Department of Justice has asked federal judges to quickly rule against four lawsuits challenging the federal government’s decision to rescind the definition of “harm” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), removing consideration of the habitat threatened animals need to survive in establishing protections.

“Regulatory overreach burdens American families and businesses, and these now-rescinded Endangered Species Act regulations are a prime example,” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of the Justice Department’s Energy and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) said in a release. “The Department of Justice will continue vigorously defending President Trump’s efforts to uphold the Act as written and protect economic growth.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

MARYLAND: US Wind pulls out of wind turbine manufacturing at Sparrows Point

October 8, 2026 — US Wind, the company behind a proposed offshore wind development off the coast of Ocean City, no longer plans to develop components for wind turbines at Baltimore County’s Sparrows Point — at least not for now.

The Baltimore-based company turned over its lease at the Tradepoint Atlantic site in Sparrows Point to Anduril Industries, the shipbuilding company whose arrival was heralded on Tuesday by a visit from President Donald Trump (R).

It comes as US Wind’s only offshore wind project, planned for Ocean City’s coastline, continues to face legal headwinds and roadblocks from the Trump administration.

At the tail end of President Joe Biden’s (D) administration, the US Wind project received its last federal permit, but the town of Ocean City challenged it shortly thereafter. And after Trump’s inauguration, the federal government that once defended the permit permit for the project signaled its intent to revoke it, spurring a new round of legal wrangling.

In a statement issued Tuesday, US Wind CEO Jeff Grybowski said his company “jumped at the opportunity” to bring “near-term” jobs to the Sparrows Point site as US Wind faces delays. The site will be taken over by Anduril, which plans to invest $3.7 billion at the former home of Bethlehem Steel to construct a new shipbuilding facility, Arsenal-2, that is expected to bring an estimated 3,100 permanent new jobs to Maryland.

Read the full article at Maryland Matters

United States Wins Key Measures Benefiting U.S. Fisheries on Pacific Bluefin Tuna and Ensuring Research on Dorado and Billfish

October 8, 2026 — During recent international negotiations, the U.S. delegation to the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission advanced key American economic and conservation priorities. The successes support Executive Order 14276 on “Restoring America’s Seafood Competitiveness” by improving U.S. fishing opportunities, leveling the playing field for U.S. commercial fishermen, and modernizing ocean governance.

At the September 2026 Commission annual meeting in Lisbon, Portugal, 21 nations built consensus on high-priority fisheries and issues, including:

Pacific bluefin tuna
Electronic monitoring
South Pacific albacore
Dorado, South Pacific swordfish, and other billfish
Sharks and seabirds

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

Celebrate National Seafood Month by Choosing American Seafood

October 7, 2026 — October is National Seafood Month, a time to celebrate the essential role American seafood plays in feeding our nation, powering coastal economies, and preserving a heritage built around our working waterfronts. I’ve been part of the seafood sector my whole life, so to me, my family, and my colleagues at NOAA Fisheries, every month is Seafood Month! But October gives us the welcome opportunity to swell the tide of national gratitude for the hardworking fishermen and seafood farmers who feed us. Thanks to them and our science-based management system, American seafood represents the gold standard for sustainability. And while 50 years of management under the Magnuson-Stevens Act has made the United States the model for sustainable fisheries, there is still work to be done.

In my time at NOAA Fisheries, I hope I’ve made my focus clear: I want to ensure our domestic seafood sector thrives in an increasingly competitive global marketplace. By increasing opportunities in our wild-caught domestic fisheries and expanding seafood farming operations, we can get more American seafood on American plates. And NOAA has been empowered by the President’s Executive Order on Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness to do just that.

In recent months, we have committed to tangible agency actions to directly support the industry. We are confronting the economic headwinds facing our seafood sector by driving reforms designed to help our seafood producers. I believe we can go a long way toward meeting these goals by modernizing our regulatory framework, tackling market imbalances, and highlighting the unmatched quality and sustainability of American seafood.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

Trump tried to make allies of fishermen. Some are turning on him

October 5, 2026 — John Evich, a commercial fisherman in Washington and Alaska, has voted for President Donald Trump three times, viewing him as someone who would fight for his industry.

But these days, Evich is weary of the high cost of doing business at sea, with fuel prices rising and trade hostilities with Canada jeopardizing markets for the crabs that he pulls off the ocean floor.

“If somebody came along that was going to do a better job, I would vote for them in a heartbeat,” he said.

Evich’s sentiment, echoed throughout the U.S. seafood industry, is another piece of a political puzzle that is working against Trump in the midterm elections. Dissatisfaction among commercial fishermen could cause collateral damage for Republicans in competitive races in Washington, Alaska and Maine.

“Having those costs be so much higher this year has really undermined the viability of some of our fisheries,” Alaska fisherman Linda Behnken said.

Read the full article at The Associated Press

As Trump rolls back endangered species protections, US lawmakers push bill to support their recovery

October 2, 2026 — With the administration of U.S. Donald Trump moving quickly to roll back endangered species protections, some U.S. lawmakers have introduced a bill to support and improve species recovery efforts.

“Protecting the thousands of endangered species and strengthening recovery efforts must be a bipartisan cause – it is a shared responsibility that takes all of us. My new legislation with Senator [Pete] Ricketts [R-Nebraska] updates the Endangered Species Act to ensure policies that will help species on the verge of extinction survive and recover are implemented efficiently, based on science, and in partnership with private landowners and states. We must all do our part to leave the world a better place than we found it,” U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-California) said in a release.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

The Scramble for the Open Seas

September 30, 2026 — Over the last half millennium, societies around the globe competed to divide up the world’s land. Nearly every square inch of soil outside Antarctica is now owned and tucked within national borders. But the oceans have largely been spared that fate. There were times throughout history when countries tried to gate and regulate the seas, but they were too vast to be controlled for long periods. During the Cold War, as technology made it far easier to imagine partitioning the world’s waterways and seabeds, great powers avoided an unrestrained race to grab the oceans. Most governments agreed to deal with them through a patchwork of treaties and multilateral bodies that sought to guarantee freedom of navigation in international waters and assign coastal seabeds to adjacent littoral states.

That order is now collapsing. The Houthis are disrupting shipping in the Bab el Mandeb Strait, the gateway to the Red Sea. Iran and Oman are planning to charge ships fees for using the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for global energy supplies and fertilizers. In July, U.S. President Donald Trump even floated the idea that the United States could impose its own toll on Hormuz, only to later drop the plan.

Other governments, too, are jockeying to claim international waters and marine resources for themselves. Russia is trying to assert control over vast swaths of Arctic waters and seabeds, China is building artificial islands in the South China Sea, the United States has expanded its claims to seabeds beyond its exclusive economic zone, and many countries are laying the groundwork to mine the ocean floor for critical minerals.

The institutions that have kept the oceans free and open are failing, and great powers have, in key areas, stopped abiding by the rules that have held for decades. States are already making moves to control the seas. If governments rush to claim the world’s waters, as they did its land, they will make global commerce more difficult and encourage a new era of seaborne conflict. A world in which the oceans are carved up will invariably be poorer and more dangerous.

Read the full article at Foreign Affairs

Scientists, fishermen want feds to keep funding deep-ocean observation system

September 29, 2026 — New England scientists and fishermen are urging the Trump administration to continue funding the Ocean Observatories Initiative — a network of buoys and gliders that collect data from remote parts of the ocean. The National Science Foundation began quietly dismantling the deep-ocean observation system last summer, until the effort was blocked by the U.S. Senate.

The hundreds of scientific instruments remain in the water for the moment, and the federal agency is now asking for public input on the future of the system, with a deadline for comments set for September 30.

Scientists are regarding the agency’s recent request for input with cautious optimism, said Hilary Palevsky, a marine biogeochemist at Boston College. She said the abrupt removal of instruments from the water last summer “shook the community.”

“That was really different from how NSF has operated in the past,” she said.

While the system could certainly use some tweaks, upgrades and better integration with other ocean observation technology, she said, “that should be a decision that’s made with robust community engagement and peer review, not a top-down decision.”

Read the full article at wbur